Keys
by In A Rush
Summary: A one shot, rated M for language. Read to find out more


**Okie Dokie, so wicked nachos seems to be in need of a Stella/ Shannon fic and has given me prompt Keys. Let's see if I can please wicked with this little one shot improve in a drowsy haze.**

**I unfortunately don't own Rush but I do enjoy writing fics when I am in the right frame of mind.**

…

Turning up to base in a foul mood, Shannon is less than thrilled to be at base let alone having to work. She had a shitty night's sleep the previous night due to working late followed by a late drink at the pub before taking her girlfriend home. Even though they hadn't confirmed anything, Shannon had automatically assumed she would be staying the night as they normally have an unspoken agreement to stay at one of their houses after they went out. It had made sense once their belongings had slowly started to make their way into the others house, so Shannon was shocked when her girlfriend of 10 months had sent her on her way.

Shannon struggled to fall asleep due to her bed feeling empty and cold, she felt comfortable lying in her girlfriends arms or vice versa. So by the time she had fallen asleep it wasn't until the wee hours of the morning.

Now she was late to work due to her alarm's battery dying and was woken up by her loud ringtone on her mobile from her less than happy Senior Sergeant telling her to get her arse down to base in time for their debriefing.

Sighing, she gets out of the car and quickly stomps into base and heads to the lockers where everyone was either doing up the last of their gear or sitting down and waiting.

"Nice of you to join us Sergeant." Lawson said angrily as she quickly got to work on getting changed.

"I'm sorry; I told you my battery died in my alarm." Shannon said doing up her boots followed by putting on her belt as everyone watched on.

"Well maybe it's time to by a new alarm or replaces the batteries more frequently, or better yet don't have such a late night out, god it looks like you didn't sleep." Lawson said inspecting her appearance as she slammed her locker shut mumbling "That's coz I didn't you dickhead."  
The team sniggered knowing Lawson was about to blow a fuse.

"What was that?" he asked.

"I said that's because I didn't sleep, or get much I should say, and before you say anything it wasn't because of a late night out." Shannon said irritably.

"Well simple, go to bed earlier." Lawson said.

"Oh bite me, just get on with the debriefing; you're making us run even later now." Shannon said sitting down and rubbing the tension she was feeling in her forehead.

"Well if you hadn't slept in…" Lawson started to say.

"Lawson, give it a rest, she isn't the first of us to be late to work, you've been late too, usually she is here before the majority of us, so just drop it and get on with it." Josh says cutting in and looking at Shannon with a slight smile to let her know he had her back and she nodded her appreciation.

Sighing as Lawson started to ramble on about the day's events, Shannon dreads the long day she knows she is going to have and was in desperate need of a cup of coffee and breakfast.

…

Walking towards TR1 with keys in hand, Shannon rubs the sleep out of her eyes as she hears jogging behind her.

"Hey babe, let me drive." Stella says with a smile as she comes to a stop a couple of steps ahead of Shannon.

"No." Shannon says not wanting to spend the day in the car with Stella and Lawson.

"Come on, you're tired." Stella whined.

"I'm fine, Lawson is already shitty with me as it is, I'm not changing spots, and he will kill me." Shannon says irritably hopping into the driver's seat and moving the mirrors and seat around.

"Did I do something wrong?" Stella asks.

"No." Shannon says way too quickly for Stella's liking.

"Oh come on babe, don't be like that, I didn't know you were going to sleep in, I would have called you otherwise." Stella says looking at her girlfriend through the rear view mirror from her position in the backseat.

"It's fine." Shannon says.

"Is this because you had to stay home by yourself last night, if so, I'm sorry Shan, I had something I needed to do." Stella says sympathetically.

"Like what?" Shannon asks turning around in her seat to look Stella straight in the eye.

"All good things come to those who wait, trust me you're going to like it, didn't your mum ever teach your patience is a virtue." Stella says jokingly briefly forgetting what Shannon was like when her family was mentioned.

"I taught myself patience, mum was never home." Shannon says.

"We okay though?" Stella asks worriedly.

"I didn't get much sleep last night being on my own, I just need some sleep." Shannon says and Stella feels deflated as she feels guilty for her girlfriend's tiredness and lack of sleep. Wanting to discuss it more and apologise, Stella holds that thought as Lawson hops in.

Hopping into the car, Lawson can pick up the tension. Deciding not to interfere when it came to those two, especially when Shannon was in a foul mood, he says "Let's go."

…...

Having done an extra 14 hours and ending up having clocked up a 34 hour shift in total so far due to having major situations pop up, there latest being a hostage situation between a brother taking his sister from their parent house in Yellingbo, spending almost 8 hours trying to locate them in the Yellingbo State Nature Reserve, having constantly just missed them by a few moments, Shannon was more than happy when they had eventually caught him and handed him over to General Duties while the sister got checked out by the paramedics.

Walking to TR1, Shannon shakes of the dizzy spell and weakness she had been suffering from for the past couple of hours and stood at the back door of the car. Throwing Stella the keys, Shannon get into the backseat.

"Shannon what do you think you're doing?" Lawson asks at the door.

"Swapping with Stella, I'm beat." She says.

"No, you're driving." Lawson said.

"Come on Lawson, I drove most of the shift, it's a 70 minute drive minimum in this kind of traffic, I already drove up here, I can't drive us back." Shannon says.

"In the front now Shannon." Lawson orders.

Begrudgingly, Shannon gets out of the back and swaps with Stella, Stella shooting Shannon a sympathy look quickly before hopping back into the car, feeling sorry for her as Lawson had been giving her a hard time for 34 hours.

Sitting in the backseat, Stella feels relaxed and is more than looking forward to heading home with her girlfriend. Being in her own little world, she didn't notice Shannon going all quiet and pale while the car slowly started to swerve or Lawson telling her off for her poor driving skills.

It wasn't until the car fully swerved into the next lane before her notice Shannon's head had dropped down and quickly shot back up a minute later as Lawson leaned over and corrected the steering wheel.

"Shit, what the fuck happened Shan." Stella yells out as Shannon appears dazed and doesn't respond, just staring widely at the road.

"Shan pull over, pull over now." Lawson yells at her, directing her to the emergency lane on the freeway with TR2 pulling up just a couple of metres behind them.

Resting her head against the headrest, Shannon closes her eyes and tries to tune out all the yelling that isn't making much sense through all the haze and pain from the severe headache she was suffering.

"What the bloody hell happened?" Josh asks striding angrily towards TR1, angry with Lawson for not giving Shannon a break like Josh had warned him too.

"I don't know, she just lost control of the car." Lawson said not wanting to have a confrontation infront of the rest of the team whom are looking at him with utter disgust at his behaviour.

"I can clearly see that, I want to know why?" Josh asks as Christian and Stella tries and gets Shannon to respond to them but to no avail.

"I don't know, she won't respond to us." Lawson says.

"Michael gets Leon to send out an ambo." Christian yelled out as Stella looked on hopelessly as Christian dealt with the situation while she hung her head in her hands feeling guilty for Shannon being in this position. Sure they were all tired and fatigued but Shannon had copped it the worse, on top of no sleep, Lawson had been drilling her all day.

As Shannon eventually gets loaded into the ambulance, and Josh angrily signals for the boys to get into TR2, Stella hops into the driver's seat and her guilt soon turns to anger towards Lawson for pushing her girlfriend before her limits and for putting their safety at risk.

As they travel along in silence, Lawson decides to apologise to Stella.

"Look, I'm really sorry for what happened." He says.

"You just better hope it's nothing to serious, she told you she wasn't up for driving and yet you pushed her and pushed her and now she is going to hospital, no thanks to you." She spits out at him.

"I'm sorry." He says.

"Yeah so you keep saying." She says staring at the road ahead of her.

…

Having gotten dressed, debriefed and having talked to Kerry, Stella hops into her car with Shannon's belongings from her locker and heads to the Alfred Hospital.

Walking into emergency she quickly finds her girlfriend where the receptionist had explained it to her and smiles when she sees Shannon looking slightly happier and sitting up in bed eating. What through her off though was the bag of clear liquid she notices attached to Shannon's arm as Stella puts down the bag.

"What's wrong?" Stella asks worriedly having been informed briefly by Kerry that Shannon was starting to recover but they were waiting for the test results.

"Well combined with my lack of sleep, I didn't eat enough or drink nearly enough fluids to keep me going so I suffered from some dehydration and depleted energy stores, hence the dizziness and headaches, they attached me to the IV to just get my fluids back up and in a couple of hours' time they will do the tests again, if my blood sugar levels sneak up a little bit and everything else is in the all clear, than I can get discharged." Shannon says smiling.

"Am I forgiven then?" Stella asks a Shannon finishes the last of the real.

"Yeah I guess so." Shannon smiles.

"Get some sleep." Stella says, running her fingers through Shannon's hair and settling her to sleep.

…

After having a couple of hours sleep and everything being in the all clear, Stella drives Shannon back to her apartment in Fitzroy and leads her upstairs.

Turning around outside the door, Stella asks "Are you able to stay up for a few minutes, I need to ask you something?" Stella asks.

"Yeah I guess so." Shannon says not entirely sure where this was going.

Walking in after her, Shannon took a seat on the couch before a black simple small box caught her eye.

Smiling at where Shannon's gaze had fallen, Stella picks up the box and gets down on one knee.

"Stella, what are you doing?" Shannon asks with a worried look.

"Happy ten months Shan, will you move in with me?" Stella asks with a playful smirk.

Slapping her on the arm, Shannon says "You're a cow, I thought you were going to propose so you made me worry that you were moving too quick."

"I know but your face was priceless, but I am hoping you will say yes to move in so we can hopefully celebrate something else ." Stella says wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

"Yes, my answer is yes." Shannon says taking the set of keys and placing it into her bag.

"Awesome." Stella says giving Shannon a passionate kiss.

"Let's do some celebrating them." Shannon says with a giggle.

"If you're up for it." Stella says with a laugh standing up.

"More than ready." Shannon says getting up to chase her.


End file.
